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Billionaire Xavier Niel, who owns French telco Iliad, has expressed an interested in purchasing Altice Portugal, according to a report from Bloomberg
Altice Portugal, which is part of Altice Group and serves customers using the brand name Meo, is owned by French billionaire Patrick Drahi, who indicated his intention to sell the unit in summer last year.
Since then, Altice has reportedly received interest from numerous buyers, with Drahi set to narrow down the current pool of bidders into a shortlist at some point early this year.
It is widely known that Saudi Telecom Company (STC) are in the running, but some other companies involved have asked not to be identified. Portuguese business newspaper Jornal Económico has reported that Altice has received three non-binding offers, but did not disclose any further details.
Discussions on this deal are ongoing and nothing has been decided as of yet.
Meo is currently the leader in the Portuguese telecoms market, with a 48% market share of the mobile segment and a 41% share of the fixed broadband segment. While valuations for the business have not been disclosed, sources suggest that current bids range between €7 billion to €9.5 billion.
Altice Group itself is currently laden with a debt pile of around $60 billion, which Drahi is seeking to rectify with Meo’s sale and other divestments. Altice announced its intention to sell off the control of its data centre business in November, entering into an agreement with Morgan Stanley to sell a 70% share of the business for €535 million to create a new venture named UltraEdge.
Altice’s financial woes have not been helped by an ongoing scandal involving co-founder and COO Armando Pereira, who was arrested in July on suspicion of tax fraud, corruption, and money laundering.
This deal with Morgan Stanley is not yet completed, but if approved by regulators, is expected to close in the first half of next year.
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